A third-generation metals enthusiast, Lisa tried several times to leave the metals industry for something more glamorous, but she just couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it. Lisa currently functions as Executive Editor & Co-Founder of MetalMiner, and as Managing Director and CEO of Azul Partners. In 2004, the CEO of a Tier 1 automotive company challenged her to save his company some money, so Lisa formed Aptium Global with partner Stuart Burns. Lisa began trading semi-finished aluminum metals in June of 1994 after earning her master’s degree in Public Administration (of all things) at New York University. (It was there that she ended up working for a shady aluminum trader who turned out to have the Russian mob after him, but that’s another story.)

Pierre has 25 years of procurement and supply chain industry and consulting experience, and is a recognized procurement expert specializing in supply processes, practices, metrics, and enabling tools and services. He is a regular contributor to business publications, a frequent presenter at industry events around the world and counts himself fortunate to have served and interacted with so many CPOs and future CPOs.

Jason is the founder of Azul Partners and co-founder of Spend Matters. He spends most of his time contributing to building Spend Matters SolutionMap. But he divides the rest of his waking hours between research, writing, due diligence analysis, corporate finance advisory and mentoring dozens of firms and procurement organizations in the industry. Prior to Azul Partners, Jason got his on-the-job education in procurement technology working at FreeMarkets for five years in a variety of roles. Before that, he started his career in consulting and merchant banking. Jason holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Current investment disclosures: Azul Partners, Inc., Koble, Inc., Public Spend Forum, LLC, RJSL Group LLC, Sigaria Ltd., Spendata LLC, and Spend Matters Europe Ltd.

As Editor-at-large for MetalMiner, Stuart was drawn into the metals business by a fascination with metallurgy. To a struggling science grad in the 1980s, commodity traders seemed to make very big bucks. It was only as the years went by that Stuart’s visits to producers and consumers in far-flung (and occasionally hostile) parts of the world instilled in him a more refined appreciation for the wider delights of being a physical metals expert. Stuart used his scientific training and business experience to communicate effectively with engineer and buyer, local politician and corporate manager. Today, he couldn’t imagine being in any other industry, as few match the metals markets for excitement and global reach.

Peter has been around procurement for 30 years as a manager, CPO and consultant. He has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University, is a Fellow and was 2003 President of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. Peter is a regular speaker at conferences and workshops, and his first book, co-authored with Fiona Czerniawska, was published in June 2010 by The Economist Books; “Buying Professional Services; How to get value for money from consultants and other professional services providers.”

Sheena is immersed in the inner workings of the procurement and supply chain industry through product development and delivery and day-to-day site and client management as Vice President of Client Services. She has carefully cultivated an entertaining and insightful voice that links the Spend Matters brand to the worldwide procurement community. Sheena holds a BA in English Literature and Political Science from the University of Washington and an MA in English Literature from DePaul University. In her spare time, she coaches for Recovery on Water (a rowing team for breast cancer survivors), stays sane by going to hot yoga classes, and works together with her husband to fill their ever-expanding shelves with far too many books and vinyl records.

Considered a builder of industry networks, Carina has rich experience in creating B2B events and high-impact integrated marketing programs. At Azul Partners she heads up marketing across all brands with a ‘customers first’ mentality. Previously, she was head of marketing, events and operations at IACCM, head of ProcureCon events at Worldwide Business Research and the creator of numerous supply chain, procurement and new product development conferences globally. Carina is a Dutch native and holds a BS in Economics & Management from Stenden University.

Andrew has over 30 years experience working as an analyst, executive, and adviser at the business intersection of technology and services. His first brush with procurement came early in his career when he was a network planner for a Ford Aerospace telecom services subsidiary, responsible for leasing high speed digital bandwidth facilities from emerging suppliers. In his long career, he followed the thread of information and communications technology (ICT) across a number of different service industry verticals and small to large companies in a variety of analytical planning and management roles (both buy and sell side). In more recent years, beginning as a research analyst at Staffing Industry Analysts, he has become focused as an analyst, writer, and adviser researching the rapidly changing services and labor supply chains (especially the impact of technology). Andrew holds an MS in Policy Analysis from Carnegie Mellon University, where he first learned to code in FORTRAN and developed a deep appreciation for the value of data and statistics He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he enjoys time with his family and volunteering as a Pet Assisted Therapy dog handler.

As Managing Editor of MetalMiner and Spend Matters, Taras writes for and edits the blog, leads the video production department for the company and heads editorial strategy for the Spend Matters Network. First faced with the joys of supply and demand in his IB Economics course (taught by a boisterous former CME trader) at the International Academy in Michigan, Taras has since been published by NASDAQ Community, Seeking Alpha and others. Taras has a master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University, produces documentary film when outside the office and considers himself an advocate of good craft beer.

Although he hadn’t thought much about steel futures, Chilean copper mines or hot-rolled coil before, Fouad has always been one for learning new things.
Fouad joined the MetalMiner team as its newest editor, coming from a journalism background. He previously covered local news in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where he wrote about local life, theater, sports, local government, and just about everything else under the sun.
While he has degrees in English and journalism, he’s always had a passion for the sciences. As a young reporter in graduate school, he covered an astronomy and astrophysics beat, which gave him the opportunity to talk to brilliant scientists from all over the country (and even around the world).

Nancy has 25 years of professional editorial experience, including 15 years within the analyst and IT publishing industry. She previously served as EMEA Publishing Director for Gartner with responsibility for all client-facing analysis and reports, and prior to that as Managing Editor for Dataquest, then part of the Dun & Bradstreet group. Most recently, she was Editorial Director for a technology public relations firm with charge over driving editorial excellence and authorship for all client content and published materials including newsletters, customer reference programmes and thought-leadership papers. Nancy holds a BA (honours) in Linguistics and Modern Languages and is an associate of the CIPR.

Sydney is editor-at-large at Spend Matters, where she writes on a variety of supply chain and procurement-related topics. Her reporting interests include labor conditions, corporate social responsibility, and women and millennials in supply chain. Like most of her editorial colleagues, Sydney is an alum of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, and a couple places where she chose to be published anonymously.

Michael Lamoureux is one of the most prolific writers and experts in the procurement and supply chain areas. He is joining forces with Spend Matters to contribute to SolutionMap and related projects. He also continues to serve as “the doctor” of sourcing innovation, a leading resource for education on supply management best practices, technologies and trends. Michael’s path to procurement falls outside the box. After leaving academia upon completing his Ph.D. he worked for a few early e-commerce companies where he designed online databases and virtual shopping carts before most people even knew what the World Wide Web was. During these activities, he stumbled onto a startup that wanted to change procurement forever by bringing optimization to strategic sourcing. His job at this firm, as the first hire, quickly morphed from building the data model, to feed the optimization model, to building the sourcing model itself. After this, he worked on next generation online marketplaces, large-scale global supply and distribution models as well as next generation strategic sourcing decision optimization technology. In 2006, he started his own blog, and since then, has always enjoyed – well, almost always – the banter with Jason Busch and company at Spend Matters. Michael, Jason and the rest of the team are thrilled to be finally collaborating on a formal basis.

David has served as the founder and president of Global Business Intelligence (“GBI”) since 1996. For almost 20 years, David has been running a global research and advisory practice centered on helping banks, vendors and corporations with trade services, trade credit and financial supply chain matters. His formal education includes an Information Systems and Economics degree from Carnegie-Mellon University, an MBA from Purdue, and a Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Along with Jason Busch and the Spend Matters Network, he is also the co-founder and Managing Director of Trade Financing Matters.

Tom is a serial entrepreneur and reluctant expert in the myriad applications of optimization to strategic sourcing and supply chain management –especially in healthcare, where the first collaborative sourcing projects ever attempted were successfully executed under his direction. He has been the first business executive hired by technology innovators from MIT, the University of Cambridge and CMU, so getting high-brow intellectuals and early commercial adopters on the same page is a battle-tested communication skill that Tom has had ample opportunity to hone over a 30-year career. Tom earned his undergraduate degree at Allegheny College and went on to the University of Taipei to continue his study of Mandarin. He has a knack for connecting dots that others don’t see and a readily obvious ability to communicate the possibilities. In his spare time, Tom is the principal editor of Healthcare Matters.

As Assistant Editor of Spend Matters, Nick works closely with the analyst and editorial teams to write and edit blogs posts, breaking news and research for sites across the Spend Matters Network. He first dove into the commodities and supply world while covering agriculture and derivatives for the Medill News Service. His writing has since been published on Zacks.com, NASDAQ.com and others. Nick holds a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, with a concentration in magazine writing and editing. Outside of the office, he leads a double life as a cellist — his undergraduate degree, from Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music, is in performance — and flirts with the idea of taking his JavaScript skills beyond an embarrassingly rudimentary level.

Marketing analysis is just one facet of Bri’s MetalMiner game. She also provides customer engagement and is a lead generation specialist. She writes the company’s bi-weekly newsletter, GUNPOWDER, and is the voice/guru behind MetalMiner’s many social media sites — Like, Tweet, Plus, Pin, or get LinkedIn with her! Bri also serves as the conference planner for MetalMiner and Spend Matters. When time permits, she enjoys writing an article or two for the site and poking her head into one of Taras’ videos. Brianna has a master’s degree in English literature from DePaul University, hails from the Ice Cream Capital of the World (LeMars, Iowa) and enjoys the outdoors.

Sam’s role at Spend Matters and MetalMiner covers all marketing operations, including advertising, email newsletters, webinars, social media, content creation, and more. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he worked in the Marketing department at POOL4TOOL, a solution provider. A Chicago native, he speaks German and enjoys traveling internationally as well as supporting Michigan football.

In addition to his near-decade at Ariba as Corporate Webmaster and as Senior Manager of Online Marketing, Scott has worked with web properties at various tech companies including Hyperion Solutions, PGP Corporation and Accept Software. Scott also has been involved with network and systems management organizations -- working with the burgeoning internet at Novell in the mid nineties. Early in his career, Scott worked for the FBI as both an illustrator and exhibits specialist before giving up the East Coast's drastic winters for the more moderate dense fogs of the West.